Gameweek 14 | A quick turnaround.

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 14’s deadline is Tuesday 3rd December, 18:00 GMT.

👀 Gabriel hints that he’s okay with an Instagram post, but he’s a maybe.

🤒 Solanke “under the weather” but will hopefully be “ready for the next one”.

👑 Salah becomes the most owned player in the game.

Keep reading for a bargain differential that’s guaranteed to give you a benching headache.

Alright?

Cancel your midweek plans. You’re ill on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. “That bloody thing that’s going around”, you’ll say to your colleagues, rolling your eyes and coughing on cue.

It’s not a total lie. There is a congestion that’s keeping you off, but it’s not your sinuses. It’s the Premier League fixture schedule.

As is customary for these quick turnarounds, this will be a slightly contracted version of the usual shite. Back to our roots - a vintage, extra-mature version of Lazy.

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues - let’s dance to Gameweek 14.

Gameweek 14’s fixtures.

Secret Santa Sorted.

Secret Santa is a minefield.

The names have been drawn from the hat, and you’ve landed Kerry in accounts. But she hasn’t spoken to you since the fire training seminar in 2013, and that was only to ask to borrow your pen.

Do you buy her a pen? Might it come across as creepy that you still remember that interaction?

But wait: Kerry is third in your work’s FPL league. She bought in Mitoma just last week. She must like fantasy football.

If only there were a gift for such an individual.

Well, if you live in the UK, now there is:

Our FPL mugs are the optimal gift for the person in your life who likes FPL a little too much: whether it’s for Kerry in accounts or someone you actually like.

Penetrative Stats.

Summary for the Lazy: Bench fodder you can actually play now and again.

We’re going to do that thing where we list some facts about a player before we reveal who they are.

• Six attacking returns this season.

• Already served a 5-yellow ban.

• The fifth-highest expected goal involvement amongst midfielders over the last six gameweeks.

• 1.8% owned.

• Just £5.0m.

Guessed it yet?

It’s Leicester’s Facundo Buonanotte. And though he might sound like a spell from Harry Potter, the only magic he’s conjuring this season is on the football pitch.

A lot of managers are shopping for a budget midfielder at the moment. Padding out your team’s midriff isn’t easy when you’ve spent so much bread on the likes of Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and Mohamed Salah.

Buonanotte could be the answer.

Listen, he isn’t going to be in your starting 11 every gameweek. But the Leicester man has become a shining light in an otherwise dreary start to the season for the Foxes.

His fixtures are a mixed bag, but as we’ve said, the Argentine isn’t the man you hang your hopes on week in, week out. He’s there to come in when the player who ought to be playing gets the shits or has one too many pints at the club’s Christmas party.

Buonanotte has started every game since Gameweek 6 apart from the Chelsea game in Gameweek 12 (he was banned for accruing five yellows). He’s scored in 50% of those six starts and wracked up a better xGI than the likes of Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer.

If Ruud van Nistelrooy does make an impact at Leicester, this 19-year-old talent will surely be one of the main beneficiaries.

Has anything happened since last Gameweek?

Summary for the Lazy: Not really. Solanke could be back, Gabriel is a maybe.

Seeing that it’s only been 24 hours since the end of the last gameweek, there isn’t much news to report.

Gabriel posted “see you next Wednesday” on his Instagram, so his owners are hopeful that he’s recovered from a reoccurrence of the issue that forced him off against Sporting Lisbon last week. It remains to be seen whether he’ll be ready for Wednesday.

Dominic Solanke was “under the weather” prior to the Fulham game. In Ange Postecoglou’s words, “He was under the weather so we sent him home. Hopefully a full recovery and ready to go for the next one.”

The best captain for Gameweek 14.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Palmer.

With just 0.4 expected goal involvements last gameweek, Cole Palmer captainers might consider themselves lucky to have walked away with 14 points.

But such is Palmer’s quality that he’s almost impervious to underlying stats.

As it goes, his underlying stats are pretty good too, and he’ll travel to a Southampton side that have conceded the most expected goals allowed per home game this season (2.55).

Erling Haaland is always a consideration at home despite recent Premier League form, though he’ll host a robust Nottingham Forest. Only Liverpool have defended better on the road this season.

Mohamed Salah (away at Newcastle) and Bukayo Saka (at home to Man United) could do what they’ve done so frequently this season, but their opponents present bigger challenges than Palmer’s.

The Professor is rolling a transfer following the tiniest of red arrows in Gameweek 13 (from 1.014m to 1.025m).

Cole Palmer gets the armband.

Sign up to LazyFPL Premium to get the logic behind his moves (or lackof).

The key stats.

As is custom for these tight turnarounds, the bookies haven’t updated the scoring odds yet. I’d assume Erling Haaland at home to Nottingham Forest is top, but we’ll tweet them out tomorrow.

Start of the month = points refresh.

It’s the start of the month 🎉

That means we’re giving away a new prize on Sleeper. This month, it’s 10x annual subscriptions to LazyFPL (worth £50 each). That means the top 10 highest points scorers will win a prize.

Remember, you just have to click the club badge of the teams you think will win every week.

Scan the QR code below or click here to get involved. It’s free!

Other stuff we found interesting.

• Man City haven’t won in seven matches - the worst run in Pep’s career.

• Brennan Johnson becomes the second player to score 10+ non-penalty goals in the Premier League this season (along with Haaland).

• Mohamed Salah is having his best-ever season so far. He’s averaging over 10 points per game.

• This excellent fixture graph showing the gaps between games for teams in December.

Right, we’re back on Friday. Until then, you know what to do (but we’ll remind you anyway):

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.